My DIY confinement
There are a few pre-requisites to determine if you are suitable to do your own confinement.
1) A hands-on husband - This is a very essential part to going DIY as your husband will be the maid and the confinement nanny most times. Does he share the house work? If yes, then he should be prepared to shoulder more. If not, most likely you can hire a part time cleaner but he will also need to help with baby chores like burping the baby, changing the diaper and everything else except breast feeding. You may also want to pump out your breast milk for him to bottle feed the baby.
2) Mental preparedness for a lack of sleep - You would be able to pump out milk and ask the helper to feed the baby at night but if you are doing direct latch on, you would have to wake up at least 2 to 3 times at night to feed. Plus, you will need to change the diaper and burp the baby so on some days, a few hours of sleep is all you can get.
3) A willingness to sacrifice personal time - There will not be time initially for yourself as your awake moments will be filled with feeding, feeding and more feeding. Be prepared to give up your own identity to be someone else's mother for a period of time... or maybe forever.
What you may need:
1) Confinement meals - I have reviewed it at this post.
2) Part time cleaner - I thought I needed it but ended up, I had help from mothers on both sides.
3) Day time helper - You might need someone to look after the baby when you do your post partum massage. For me, I made sure the baby was well fed and was sleeping peacefully before the massage. The massage lady was also kind enough to let me feed the baby for a while if necessary.
It used to be that babies drink formula milk at night and breast milk during the day. However, now that the recommendation is to feed breast milk exclusively especially for the first month, the confinement nanny has even less of a role to play. You could definitely pump out your breast milk and ask the confinement nanny to feed but after the first month, you will still have to learn to get through the nights yourself. Honestly, I think $3000 to hire them is not worth it. Including the cooking ingredients, my friends had to fork out around $4500.
Indeed, the first week (or the first week after the confinement nanny left) was really a mad rush to adjust to the baby's schedule and preferences but after which, I can really say that it is not difficult to do it alone.
I survived it, and you can do so too.
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| Confinement is really like a prison term |
2) Mental preparedness for a lack of sleep - You would be able to pump out milk and ask the helper to feed the baby at night but if you are doing direct latch on, you would have to wake up at least 2 to 3 times at night to feed. Plus, you will need to change the diaper and burp the baby so on some days, a few hours of sleep is all you can get.
3) A willingness to sacrifice personal time - There will not be time initially for yourself as your awake moments will be filled with feeding, feeding and more feeding. Be prepared to give up your own identity to be someone else's mother for a period of time... or maybe forever.
What you may need:
1) Confinement meals - I have reviewed it at this post.
2) Part time cleaner - I thought I needed it but ended up, I had help from mothers on both sides.
3) Day time helper - You might need someone to look after the baby when you do your post partum massage. For me, I made sure the baby was well fed and was sleeping peacefully before the massage. The massage lady was also kind enough to let me feed the baby for a while if necessary.
It used to be that babies drink formula milk at night and breast milk during the day. However, now that the recommendation is to feed breast milk exclusively especially for the first month, the confinement nanny has even less of a role to play. You could definitely pump out your breast milk and ask the confinement nanny to feed but after the first month, you will still have to learn to get through the nights yourself. Honestly, I think $3000 to hire them is not worth it. Including the cooking ingredients, my friends had to fork out around $4500.
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| You become a cow... really! |
I survived it, and you can do so too.
Jes
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Nope!
ReplyDeleteYou survive your problem.
After reading what you have gone through, no way I'm going to get myself pregnant!
Ever!
Hi Jared,
DeleteI am surprised you will still read my pregnancy posts. Guess you are interested to get pregnant but you will never get a chance to do so! Haha too bad.
Baby sleep. You no sleep?
ReplyDeleteFollow baby.
My wife slept just less than the baby! Did baby sleep well? LOL!
Hi Uncle CW,
DeleteI am trying my best to follow baby's schedule but it's so hard. Whenever I want to fall into a deep sleep, she awakens and only sleeps peacefully after making me wide awake. Haha! But it's improving, phew. Tomorrow will be a better day :)